The present invention relates to a new and useful device and method for producing attenuation of a laser beam, and particularly to providing variable attenuation of a polarized laser beam.
In certain types of optical systems, it is desirable to provide attenuation of a polarized laser beam. For example, if the power of the polarized laser beam is too strong for the particular application, it is desirable to attenuate the polarized laser beam, to reduce the power of the beam that is used in the application.
In an attenuation system designed to work with very high laser power, the unused radiation from the laser is an important issue. One known way of attenuating a polarized laser beam is to absorb a percentage of the laser beam power with several ND filters on one or more turrets so that various amounts of attenuation can be achieved. With such a technique, the ND filters absorb a great deal of energy which shortens their lifetime. Additionally the finite number of filters can only produce a limited number of discrete attenuation factors.